Cockroach Racing

For several of our students, perhaps the ultimate experience from their four years at Loyola is....

"Madagascar Madness: The Running of the Roaches."

That’s right, cockroach racing!!

Now in its twelth year in the department, students enrolled in General Entomology each fall term take on the challenge of raising large Madagascar cockroaches and training them for short-track racing and the ‘marathon.’ We like to think of the event as a thinking man’s NASCAR.

No matter how much the students try not to get enthused by the concept of cockroach racing, come race day, excitement is in the air, the crowds have gathered, and the students are screaming their lungs out for Chompy, Bradley or Jose, to name a few, “to get off their sternum,” “ram the nymph in front into the wall,” and to cross that finish line first.